Stocku

An old dear friend of mine, who I hope to have guest blog someday, gave me a great idea this evening. "Write some stock market haiku," he said.

So, without further ado, here is my first jab at "stocku".

No green on my screen
Oh my god I am so smoked
Like a long-dead fish

End of Day 03/15/07

Unfortunately, I couldn't follow up my nice day yesterday with another one today. Worse, I had a "feeling" that today was going to be a choppy, do nothing kind of day but I got sucked in nonetheless.

Stats:

Net -$805

Best stock: TNH $418
Worst stock: SQM -$511

13 stocks traded, 4 positive, 9 negative.

154 total trades.

TNH - The Freaky Hybrid Trade of the Day!

As promised, here's what TNH looked like and why it wins freaky hybrid trade of the day honors.

The chart, though inexcusably choppy, doesn't tell the whole story. What's important is how erratically this stock moved on such light volume.

9900 shares moved the stock down 1.5 points in 20 minutes on mostly 100 and 200 share prints. There was never an offer shown to indicate any type of selling pressure. This move was simply 100 share lots smacking 100 share bids and causing the stock to move straight down.

In addition, the quotes were updated over 600 times during this time period, or about once every 2 seconds. An overflow of information but unfortunately, none of it was useful in helping one discern what was happening in the stock or why it was moving down. Remember the art of tape reading? For decades it was a reliable tool on Wall Street, no longer. The hybrid system has killed tape reading.

Trades like this make me and many others doubt the integrity and overall feasibility of the hybrid system. And this is no anomaly. Really, there are literally hundreds of examples of trades like this. And lest you think I'm complaining because I somehow got wrecked in the stock, that's not the case. It was one of my better stocks today. I just happened to be watching it at this time and thought I'd highlight it's craziness.

Freaky Hybrid Trade of the Day

I've decided to create a new daily entry into the blog that I am lovingly calling the Freaky Hybrid Trade of the Day.

The first stock that I am nominating for this dubious distiction is TNH and the freakiness that associated the trading in this stock today between 9:40 and 10:00am.

I will post a detailed analysis of the freakiness at the end of the day.

If you would like to nominate any stocks for the Freaky Hybrid Trade of the Day "award" please do so by adding a comment.